then there was nothing at all
by Marvelgeek42
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERS Eventually, Morgan gets used to it.


**Me? Projecting onto Morgan Stark? ****It's more likely than you think!**

**But for real, this is largely autobiographical. The differences are mostly the cause of death (obviously) and my choice of profession/academic path. Some others, too.**

* * *

_**then there was nothing at all**_

* * *

Morgan's Daddy doesn't come home.

Morgan is four years and two months old and her Daddy doesn't come home.

He promised he would, but he didn't.

Everyone tells her that he really wanted to, that coming back home to her was the thing he had wanted the most in the entire world.

That doesn't change the fact that he didn't.

* * *

It's only after the funeral that it really sinks in.

Daddy is not coming back.

Never ever.

* * *

_Love You 3000_

* * *

Morgan starts to go to school with kids her age.

She's bored a lot of the time in class, but Mommy tells her that it's good for her to be around kids her own age.

Even if some of them are five years older than her, in a sense.

* * *

Morgan gets bored in class and she stops paying attention.

She _knows_ this stuff. Daddy had taught her some, as did Mommy and all of her aunts and uncles.

Morgan's family make a deal with the school that she gets advanced material but stays with kids her own age.

Uncle Rhodey informs her that her Dad had been made to go to class with older kids and had hated it like little else.

Morgan is thankful for the gesture, really, but at the same time, she isn't.

It would have made her feel closer to her Dad, after all.

* * *

Morgan cries a lot in the next few years.

Her classmates don't understand.

They don't really have a concept of death and loss.

Not like she does.

They know it from tales or from losing their grandparents at most.

Grief doesn't really have a place in most children's world.

Not those born after The Snap or dusted during it, at least.

It's okay, though. Her Uncle Bucky and her Aunt Nebula are teaching her how to fight back.

And Uncle Bruce tells her that there is such a thing as punching too hard.

* * *

_Love you 3000_

* * *

When the kids in school are all making things for father's day, Morgan makes them, too.

She gives the things to her Uncle Rhodey or Uncle Happy, or sometimes Peter or Harley when they are around.

It's still not the same.

* * *

Eventually, Morgan gets used to it.

It is a part of her life, she doesn't really _know_ it any different.

She stops crying over every little thing.

Now, she cries over almost nothing.

And she wonders if that might be worse after all.

* * *

_You're just like your Dad!_

Everyone says that.

How would she know?

She doesn't. Not really.

* * *

_Love You 3000_

* * *

The other kids talk casually about their dads all the time. They don't mean to hurt her, but sometimes, it hurts nevertheless.

She knows her family isn't any less of one, she knows she's not the only kid in class with a family that does not fit the model of a nuclear family.

On bad days, it hurts her anyway.

* * *

Morgan graduates high school — or, well, middle school if one was talking age wise.

She only realizes that her dad should have seen her on this day after it's all over.

What kind of _terrible_ daughter is she, she thinks to herself as she tries to sob herself to sleep that evening, that she _forgets_?

The tears don't come, and that does not help at all.

Quite the opposite, really.

* * *

That keeps happening.

And every time it feels a little bit worse than the time before.

She wants to ask her family is grief is supposed to work like this, but she is afraid

Because what if it isn't? What if Morgan is just a terrible daughter?

* * *

One of the worst moments is when she realizes that she has forgotten how her Dad's voice sounded like when it wasn't part of a hologram.

The voice doesn't sound different.

Logically she knows that.

But emotionally?

She forgot her father's voice and it's the worst thing in the world at that moment.

* * *

_Love you 3000_

* * *

She forgets her dad's birthday until FRIDAY reminds her of it.

And she lies in her bed and tries to cry herself to sleep once again.

Like every other time in the past decade or so, the tears don't come.

* * *

Morgan chooses to study at MIT.

Just like her Dad, the famous Tony Stark.

Sometimes, it feels like the entire world knows her father more than she does.

It feels incredibly unfair.

Why did everyone else get their loved ones back all those years ago, only for her Dad to die?

It just wasn't fair.

Morgan gets deep into theoretical physics and engineering.

Just like her Dad.

* * *

Some days, she is just hit with a sudden realization of how much she misses her Dad.

There isn't always a reason why she remembers.

Sometimes, it just happens without any prompting.

And no matter how many people are around her, in these moments she feels alone.

She usually goes and finds Peter on those days.

His hugs are excellent. The best ones she knows.

She does not remember her Dad's.

* * *

_Love You 3000_

* * *

When Morgan figures out that she isn't _quite_ a she — still enough to feel comfortable with female pronouns and such, yes, but not completely — she wonders what her Dad would have said.

Same when she figures out that she doesn't really care for the gender a possible partner might have. Or when she realizes that at this point it's unlikely for her to stop thinking of sex as gross.

She wonders what he would have said. Would he have minded? Especially that last part seems like it could have caused a terrible rift between them.

Her mom swears up and down that her dad would have been fine with it. But he never was in such a situation and enough people are annoying at best about it, so how can she assume that her mother is right?

She simply doesn't know for sure.

Harley, too, assures her that her dad would have been fine with it.

But he doesn't know that for sure, even if he had gotten to have a similar conversation with her dad.

He doesn't know what _exactly_ he would have said.

Uncle Happy tells him that Dad himself wasn't straight, and that helps.

It's not really enough.

* * *

Morgan Stark has inherited her father's intelligence and his stubbornness.

She has her siblings on her side — Harley and Maggie and Peter.

And she has a lot of resources on her side.

Morgan Stark will figure out time travel, and she will save her father so that at least another version of herself will have the chance to grow up with her father.

* * *

_Love You 3000_

* * *

**Is this ending hopeful enough that I don't have to go hide somewhere? I hope so.**


End file.
